To think that people have common sense to decipher the difference between poison and nutrients is a lost cause for today’s generation.
A recent meme release entailing Tide pods and their similar look to a delicious dessert has gone viral. This meme has influenced teenagers around the nation to ingest tide pods and even start a “Tide Pod Challenge.” According to The Sun, the “Tide Pod Challenge” has become the latest and most dangerous Internet challenge to emerge in 2018. Over the past few years, memes have become a source of information and influence given in a comical way to inform today’s generation of news from politics to the latest sports news to fun pieces. Because of their influence, memes have given off a dangerous tide to members across the nation.
Tide Pods are a laundry detergent that contain a warning on the package to keep out of reach of children. This is obviously because children eat everything because they do not know any better. Is America falling to idiocy? Are millennials going to fall victim to every internet challenge? It’s important for people to think carefully before they act. Just because it’s on a meme, doesn’t make the information valid or safe. Tide Pods may look and smell like a delicious liquid snack but so do candles. You don’t see anyone in their right mind putting that in their mouths though.
According to Jezebel and American Association of Poison Control Centers data, poison control centers handled thirty-nine and fifty-three cases of intentional exposures, respectively, among thirteen to nineteen-year-olds in 2016 and 2017. In the first fifteen days of 2018 alone, centers have already handled thirty-nine such intentional cases among the same age demographic. Ingestion accounted for ninety-one percent of these reported exposures.
“If you’re dumb enough to eat a tide pod then I’ve got nothing to say,” exclaimed Lynn Smith, Junior Vet Tech major. “In what world does a tide pod look sweet enough to eat? Are you a grown adult or are you an idiot?”
Along with memes’ influence of the “Tide Pod Challenge,” there have been other influential memes in the past encouraging the “Ice Bucket Challenge” as well as the “Cinnamon Challenge” and so on which brought about controversy as well. Have memes become a dangerous hobby or are people just too ignorant to believe and respond to anything they see or hear?
If you use your God-given brain, you could avoid a visit to the hospital. This mysterious part of your body could help you know the difference between life enriching snacks and death wrapped in plastic. It’s not difficult to save yourself from stupidity.
